This is a silly little story about an ultra miniature cryosphere. It is about the cryospheric changes on Haakenrud road, a private road situated close to Oslo, Norway. I live here and any changes of this miniature cryosphere has consequences for my daily life. This is the story about an environmental protection program that demolished a well functioning local cryosphere. 

What is the cryosphere?

The cryosphere is the world of ice: snow, land ice, sea ice, river and lake ice, and frozen ground.

As Earth orbits the Sun the cryosphere grows and retracts defining all together the different seasons.

The annual changes of the cryosphere are observed on global to very local scales. Popular cryospheric observations here in Åsa are the dates when lake Steinsfjorden freezes in autumn and when it thaws in spring. Even more local observations are made when snow is melting and water starts to run on the dirt road leading to my parents house and you eventually see the ants crawling busy, crisscrossing the road. The water should start to run around my mothers birthday 19^th March, but as you can guess there are great variations. Nevertheless, I get upset if the water does not run on the road by this date. We've all had it with winter season by then.

Ant crossing dirt road in spring, Åsa, Norway 

The larger scale observations are provided to us by scientists such as meteorologists and climatologists. Upscaling and downscaling climate information are some of the challenges we are facing when trying to understand what state or what changes take place in the system Earth. But this story is not about that. It is about humanly induced local changes that has nothing to do with climate change, but rather the attempts at mitigating environmental degradation of the lovely lake Steinsfjorden. My lake. And it is about how the mitigation program came to influence the Haakenrud Road miniature cryosphere.

Description of the landscape - topography/geography

Close to Haakenrud road, there is a wonderful lake; Steinfjorden. The lake is surrounded by steep hills on one side and a slightly sloping cultural lanscape on the other. There are several creeks running down from the hills including subterrain waterways. People living in this region have a pretty good overview and statistics of the rhythm of the seasonal changes in the cryosphere, like when the lake freezes and thaws.

Lake life
The lake is a popular place year round. In the winter ice fishing is a sport enjoyed both by the inhabitants of Åsa and tourists from all over. The Russians come here allegedly for the pike, but we suspect they are in fact more interested in a major secret miliatry installation close by. We all pretend they come for the pike, though. Nevertheless, ice fishing is so fantastic here people, Russians, tourists and locals alike, are ready to risk their life for catching that pike from on top of frozen water. “Death-fishing” involves moving on thin ice, so thin it oscillates when you move on it, and fishing rods of course. The wise among these extreme-sports men bring a boat with them on the ice – at least in spring. Except for this daring activity we generally respect the ice.

There are weak spots on the ice, in particular close to the places where the creeks run out in the lake. But also the bathymetry influence the strength of ice and this is the kind of local knowledge most of us living here apply when enjoying the winter lake. In summary; the practical knowledge about the cryosphere is rather good.

Lake Steinsfjorden has many small islands. Around these islands the ice can be weak and thin, so we pay special attention when moving close to those areas. 

Running water
The waterways down to this lake are fairly well known. That goes, to a large extent, also for the subterrain waterways. At least, long time residents have this knowledge. And this is where the trouble starts; not acknowledging the excisting knowledge about this branch of our local cryosphere.

Evidently, the lake is invaluable to me and the other inhabitants of the area around Steinsfjorden. To me the waterways leading down to the lake are also of great importance. In particular, of cource, those who passes by my house and Haakenrud Road. Anything disturbing the waterways on its' way down to the lake could cause unforeseen trouble. This is exactly what happened some time ago. Big trouble.

Environmental issues.

Steinsfjorden is an arm of the 5^th largest lake in Norway, Tyrifjorden. What is special about this arm is that it is pretty shallow and there is very little transportation of water trough the lake. This has resulted in a growing pollution of the lake, largely due to agricultural disposals, but also population growth with the sewerage system that follows. Local authorities have taken steps to mitigate the situation; the goal being a cleaner lake without grass that threathens to suffocate the lake, and with the famous and delicious freshwater clawfish thriving in it again.

When I grew up I believe I stayed more in the lake than out of it summer time. The toughest among us went for a dip the day the ice melted around April/May and often we went swimming until October, the lake water being fresh and clean at all times. Winter time we skated and played icehockey. I used to go skiing, ice-fishing with my grandfather and indulging in plain vanity sunbathing.

Obviously I want the lake to stay healthy. I support the principles of protecting our environment and, still in principle, a mitigation program to ameliorate the health of my dear lake Steinsfjorden. Sadly, the choice of mitigation program the local authorities chose I find highly questionable and unfortunately they have screwed up my very local cryosphere. I will let you know what exactly went wrong.

KUR – The no-sewer approach to waste water management

In order to reduce the amount of pollution entering into the lake, a new wastewater infrastructure for our rural areas was needed; for conveying effluent from failing home septic tanks to new and "green" treatment plants. The project KUR was created by local authorities to take care of this problem. KUR" simply denotes " wastewater pollution control with no piping or sewers", an interpretation that should not be read very literally, though. The project title "KUR" more precisely signifies the curing or restoration of the watershed of Steinsfjorden. If this only was true...

Moving from induvidual septic tanks for each home in Åsa, and the whole region around lake Steinsfjorden, will now use treatment plants distributed around the area. It is however necessary to digg new pipe lines leading the sewer to the treatment plant closest to the homes. This of course can disturbe the subterrain waterways, which is exactly what happened in Haakenrud road where I live. It totally messed up my miniature cryosphere and I am sure you can understand that messing up a Norwegians cryosphere is asking for trouble. Norwegians love their cryospheres, born with skis on their feet as they are. I am not happy with this KUR project, not happy at all.

Changes in Haakenrud Road

As much as the whole Steinsfjorden area cryosphere is important, it is an even smaller miniature cryosphere that I'm concerned with the most. I will in fact only focus on the cryosphere that affects the road I use several times a day – on foot, by car or other means – Haakenrud Road.

When the houses around Haakenrud road adapted to the new sewerage system KUR, new pipelines were dug. This disturbed the subterrain waterways, causing the water to find new paths. And this is where it all went bonkers. Apparently nobody thought about the water needing to find new ways when they designed the KUR for Åsa and Haakenrud Road in particular. Simply acknowledging laws of physics would have helped, but hell, who cares about gravity when environment is at stake? All they would have needed to do when planning this whole project, besides knowing basic physics, was to include the necessary local knowledge about the system Earth and it's local cryosphere. But not so.

The result is documented in the next section of this story. Pictures say it all. The dirt road was perhaps not perfect before KUR, but it certainly is TOTALLY DESTROYED now. The water finds its way down to Haakenrud road and stays there so long the whole road is disintegrating. It is more than annoying when environmental protection skyrockets infrastructure costs due to bad planning and engineering. Basically, KUR fucked up my perfectly functioning miniature cryosphere and my road.

The water runs down on my road and leave a total mess of ice and water almost all winter. The water keeps on coming so even if it is fairly cold it doesn't freeze. 

The water stays so long on the road it digs big holes in it, removing more and more of the gravel and sand. This here used to be completely dry before the infamous KUR.

Icy road all winter long due to constant outpouring of water from the ground. It is a challenge driving on this no long dirt road but ice road, with its steep hills and sharp turns.

The water carved out large portions of the road this winter resulting in increased costs for inhabitants. The road is not easy on our cars either...

You might argue that a bumpier more “moisturized” dirt road is a small prize to pay for a cleaner environment. Yes, if only the last part was true. It is not. The creeks are still smelly. And it smells all over the place where these collective treatment tanks have been placed. Also totally destroying a perfectly shaped natural landscaping, by the way.

It smelled before and it smells now. On my jogging route I pass by this waterfall. It is close to halfway and I am short of breath at this point. It is too much to ask to hold my breath to avoid the smell. KUR was suppose to remove this environmental inconvenience, but it sure as hell DID NOT! 

Summary/conclusion

I introduced this story as a SILLY little story. As you must have noticed I kept my word. Besides, how can one say that the miniature cryosphere of a single road in the remote and scarcely populated Åsa has any significance for anyone but the handful of people living there? We ll, however silly and insignificant this story is, I hope you have made the following generic observations:

If you absolutely have to mess with nature make sure to

• always consult and listen to the local people (remember, that includes women) in addition to scientists and other experts. That goes for sustainable development of developing countries in Africa and Asia as well as in safeguarding the environment in industrialized countries like Norway.

• please apply a holistic approach. The Earth is a complex system and things are generally more complicated than we think.

If you want to engage people in protecting the environment it is important that the projects, particularly those with costly consequences on a personal level, actually have a positive and wanted effect. 

Gro Harlem Brundtland words Think global, act local. can only work if you get the locals on your side.

And finally - we know way too little about the cryosphere, that is locally, regionally and globally.